Free Republic

Summary Republican legislators undertake rare mid-decade redistricting New map would shift conservative voters into Democrat-held districts One Democrat calls redistricting plan "illegal and racially discriminatory" Aug 20 (Reuters) - Texas legislators on Wednesday took up a new state congressional map intended to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats in next year's midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had temporarily blocked passage. Republican legislators, who have dominated Texas politics for over two decades, have undertaken a rare mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump, who is seeking to improve his party's odds...

Nov 5 (Reuters) - Democrat Josh Stein won the North Carolina governor's race on Tuesday, Fox News projected, defeating Republican Mark Robinson, whose candidacy imploded following a CNN report that he had called himself a "Black Nazi" and made other offensive remarks on a pornographic website. Robinson, the Southern state's lieutenant governor, has denied the allegations and filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN. Robinson was endorsed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who previously praised him as "Martin Luther King on steroids" but whose campaign distanced itself after the scandal broke in September. Robinson advocated for bringing back slavery for...

Moderate members of the U.S. House of Representatives are leaving office at twice the rate of their more partisan peers this year, a Reuters analysis found, likely deepening Washington gridlock during President Joe Biden's next two years in office. The number of incumbent House members retiring or who lost a party nomination contest is at a three-decade high after a once-a-decade redistricting process that eliminated more than a dozen of the country's dwindling number of competitive districts. Now all 50 states have finished their nominating contests, 13 of Congress's 50 most centrist members - about one in four - did...

NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated Florida's new Republican-backed voting restrictions, overruling a judge's decision that several provisions such as limits on ballot drop boxes were racially discriminatory. U.S. Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee had struck down the bulk of the law in March, finding that lawmakers had designed the legislation to be "intentionally discriminatory" against Black voters. He also ordered the state to seek court approval to make any changes to the provisions in question for the next 10 years. But a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...